One of the things I like to do, but seldom get the chance, is to take two wargames dealing with the same subject matter and play them, or run them in parallel, to see what happens.

The two games that I’ve chosen for this treatment are the old Avalon Hill game, France, 1940, and the considerably more recent game appearing in Command 42, Blitzkrieg 1940. My objective in writing about them isn’t to offer a review or an evaluation of either game, but to compare two snapshots to see if we can make any inferences about how wargames evolved (aged is probably more neutral) during the 25 years that elapsed between them.

Physical Components

France, 1940 is a Jim Dunnigan design that was published by Avalon Hill in 1972. It was a remake of Battle for France 1940 from S&T 27. Dunnigan is listed as the Research Director for Avalon Hill in the Designer’s Notes. The bookcase style box contains a mounted map, 224 ½ inch one-sided counters, an old SPI fanfold style rule book that is maddeningly difficult to use, a design notes booklet and charts.

Although old, this game is readily available on eBay—I bought the punched but very servicable copy I used for this in July 2002 for the princely sum of $4.49!

The counters depict armor divisions and infantry corps, the time scale is apparently 2 days per turn, and the map scale is stated as 10 kilometers per hex. The Designer’s Notes yield some very interesting insights into how the design process worked in 1972:

“The size of the military units represented in the game is largely determined by the scale of the playing board. By using zones of control this gives a maximum ‘front’ for one unit of 30 kms. This, oddly enough, just happens to be the frontage allocated to a corps (of three divisions) during that period. That solved a lot of problems, because to do the game on the divisional level would have meant over 100 units on each side.”

This quote actually came after a description of Dunnigan’s attempts to get the hex scale down as low as feasible, given the fixed size of the mounted map boards so the off-handed ‘oddly enough’, what-a-lucky-thing tone in the quote may be a misrepresentation of what actually was a lot of work to get the map scale and unit scale to mesh with each other.

But the quote certainly gives the impression that matching unit scale to map scale wasn’t much of a concern to a wargame designer in 1972.

The text following the quote talks about the Dunnigan’s willingness to make some compromises with the actual composition of the various infantry corps.

In the game, each nationality has cookie-cutter infantry corps. The quote also shows that in 1972 the available size of the countermix was a tremendous constraint on the possible designs. Blitzkrieg 1940 is a Ty Bomba design that appeared in Command 42, whose nominal publication date was March ‘97, a quarter of a century after the AH game. This was a magazine game that came with a 20 page rulebook, two mapsheets (one standard sized, one about half that) and fully 560 ½ inch counters— a pretty impressive package for a magazine game!

The map scale is seven miles per hex; the time scale is two days per turn; and the units represent mostly divisions, but there are also lots of brigades and regiments. Basically, the two games are pretty similar in terms of scale, except that Blitzkrieg 1940 takes the unit level down one notch compared to the AH game. Personally, I liked the Command game a little better for this. Although it took longer to set up compared to the AH game, and longer to play too in some respects, I liked having the granularity of the smaller sized units.

In comparison with the cookie-cutter approach to unit values seen in the AH game, the Command game features lots of volatile units—these have a plus or minus number on them. You roll 1d6 and adjust this number up or down according to the volatile number on the counter face, and that becomes the unit’s combat value. Technically, the rules tell you to do this process each time the unit engages in combat, but that was too much wristage for me! I rolled the first time the unit was in combat and then used a current strength marker under the unit to indicate its strength in future combats.

Except that for most of the Dutch and Belgian units, there usually wasn’t a future combat because they tended to die pretty easily. Overall, in comparing the two games just on physical components and appearance, the Command game is big, bright, colorful and cool-looking, while the older game is a little drab and plain in comparison.

Systems and Engine

France, 1940 uses a system that appeared in many games in the golden age of wargaming. The sequence of play goes like this: German initial movement, combat, and mechanized movement, followed by an Allied repetition of those three phases. In and around these phases, there are also several varieties of airplane movement.

There are ZOCs, and these are described as ‘semi-active’ in the rules: every unit pays three additional MPs to enter a ZOC, and pays two additional MPs to leave a ZOC. As long as you have enough MPs, you can keep moving past enemy units. But realistically only the mechanized units have enough MPs to penetrate more than one hex into a front line covered with ZOCs.

The CRT is a rather mammoth 13 column affair: odds based, going from 1:6 all the way up to 10:1. You roll 1d6 (DRMs can take the roll down to -1 and up to 8) and results are expressed in whole hex results, e.g., AR, BR, DX, and counterattacks (CA), some with penalties imposed. From the several hundred word text of ‘Explanation of Combat Results’, let me quote you a little bit, just to give you a little flavor of this CRT:

“If the CA Result obtained by the original Attacker against the Defender has a number preceding it (e.g., 2 CA) then the Defender must subtract this number from the die-roll of his ensuing counterattack(s). This applies only to the original Defender’s counterattacks and never to the forced repetitions of the original Attacker’s attack.

If the Defender, in his counterattack, obtains a DX or BR result against the original Attacker, the result is applied only to the original Attacker’s unit which was the subject of the counterattack, and not to those units which were not the subject of the counterattack.”

I came up with an interpretation that I used, but my point in quoting is to raise the issue of whether the CRT really needs to be this big and hard to figure? Blitzkrieg, 1940 uses that couplet system that Ty used in other designs that appeared in Command, especially in some of the East Front games. In this system, each game turn seems to turn into two game turns actually. The first player turn couplet has a German operations segment followed by an Allied operations segment.

The second player turn couplet follows the same sequence. Within each operations segment, the Germans and the Allies each have two phases; they can choose to move or fight in the first, and then they do the other procedure in the second. I think that in some of the games in which Ty used this approach, each player could move twice or fight twice, but not here.

There are some other little twists you can work into the mix though, and Ty did that here: the Germans (but not the Allies) get a positive one column shift on their attacks if they choose the fight/ move sequence. But the poor Allies get a negative one column shift on their attacks if they choose the traditional move/fight sequence. The combat system itself is very familiar; it’s odds-based with mostly negative column shifts for terrain, and a positive column shift for a concentric attack. You roll 1d6 (no DRMs) and the losses are expressed in steps. The CRT is not particularly noisy, and it seemed attacker friendly even at pretty low odds.

Although the rules say “Most of the ground units in the game have two steps”, there are a few units that have four steps, and there are a lot of units, including just about the whole French army, that have but one step. The step asymmetry really creates some interesting effects.

Most of the units exert a ZOC, and these ZOCs lock on contact for every body except the German mechanized units, all of which pay no additional movement points to glide in and around and as far past the Allied units as their movement allowance will take them. In my opinion, this is the basic mechanism that the game uses to create the blitzkrieg effect. On the other hand, the Allies have to pay an additional movement point to engage or disengage, and the disengagement has to be to a hex not in an enemy ZOC.

Overall, Blitzkrieg, 1940 seems incredibly more fluid compared to the older game, given that the map and time scales are pretty equal, and given that, if anything the Blitzkrieg, 1940 units have even higher movement allowances than France 1940, the absolute lack of additional payment for them in ZOCs means that the armor units in Blitzkrieg, 1940 have the potential to fly all over the board compared to the sort of stodgy blitzkrieg that you are forced to wage in France 1940.

I’ve noticed a similar effect in some of Ty’s other West Front designs. If you have the chance to check out a relatively early design from Ty, Operation Dynamo, which appeared in the old Wargamer back in 1986, you’ll see the panzers at play there too. If you look back at my comments on the CRTs, you’ll see why I think Blitzkrieg, 1940 is as complex as it needs to be for this game system, but no more so. In the systems and engine department, the uptick goes to Blitzkrieg, 1940.

Operation Sickle Cut

In the campaign, the Germans correctly perceived that the Ardennes Forest would not hamper military movement to the extent that the Allies, or at least the French, thought that it would.

The Command game enables the German player to duplicate the maneuver with a somewhat lengthy and involved section of rules. Essentially, the German player gets to decide how many (up to a limit), and which, units will participate in Sickle Cut. These units are placed in the Ardennes Forest on Turn One, along with any dummy units that the German cares to use (there has to be at least one real unit in a hex in order for a dummy unit to be used). Nobody can move into, through or out of the Ardennes on Turn One.

After that, the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais are just scooted to the side of the forest, and the Germans are free to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting French. The AH game has nothing to match this. As the Germans in that game, you can enter the Ardennes on turn one, and get through it pretty quickly too. But the Allies can also enter the Forest, and move through it with the same speed, which seems ahistorical to me.

Given that this initial maneuver was such an important part of the campaign, getting it right seems to be important, and I think the Command game represents a significant improvement in historicity over the AH game on this dimension.

Part 2